In an initiative to make the public aware of physics and its significance in US history, the American Physical Society (APS) is placing plaques around the country to mark the sites of important physics discoveries.
Five sites have been selected this year. They are Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where Albert Michelson and Edward Morley used their interferometer to show that the speed of light is constant; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in remembrance of Henry Rowland, who immensely improved diffraction gratings; the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, to honor Benjamin Franklin for his experiments with lightning and electricity; Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where Arthur Compton did the work on x-ray scattering now named for him; and Yale University, at the site where Josiah Willard Gibbs did his work in thermodynamics.
The APS register of historic sites will be expanded every year. “Once we’ve got the...
